


Jean and Haller - Amends - November 27, 2015

by X_Project



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Project RPG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 19:36:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8070013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/X_Project/pseuds/X_Project
Summary: When David Haller tries to apologise to Jean for an incident during a mission, he discovers just how much damage he did.   Jean played by Mack, Haller played by Tapestry





	

Jean swept the floor to the medlab the old fashioned way, rather than Fantasia-ing it like she normally did. Sometimes cleaning using her own hands was zen-like.

It was late at night, far less of a chance to be disturbed, and she liked it that way. She'd been trading with the other medlab people to get the night shift so she could be alone.

Most of the injuries were happening outside the mansion anyway.

The music playing was slower-paced and acoustic, but she had it up loud enough so that she could get lost in it, at one point closing her eyes to listen to the strings of the guitar.

The music was interrupted by a rap on the doorframe. It was loud enough to be heard, but with a slow tempo calibrated not to startle.

The originator said, in an uncomfortably familiar voice, "Excuse me."

Jean's eyes snapped open. She had been lulled into a false sense of security, so her powers didn't detect him this time. Or if they did it was already too late. The iPod clicked off, and she stared up at him, silent a moment before speaking.

"Can I help you?"

It was 10:00pm. He didn't look hurt. This was a social visit.

Wonderful.

Haller nodded, lowering his hand from the doorframe. "You didn't reply to the email." He studied the tension on Jean's face. "I owe you as much of an apology as Scott and Kurt," he said. "I wanted to be sure everything was all right between us."

Jean kept her eyes on his hand for a moment before she looked back to him.

"It's not. I'm not ready to talk to you right now. And all of that is between you and Scott, anyway."

"No, it isn't." Haller leaned against the doorframe, his too-pale blue eyes still watching her. "Scott was going to have us handle the mob and riot police with defensive telekinesis. When I took on those men you had to handle damage control instead. On top of that, you're still getting used to applying more intense telepathy. It was an unfair position to put you in. As Scott and Charles made abundantly clear to me."

Gripping her broom handle, Jean shook her head. "I said, I don't want to talk about this right now, Haller," she said firmly, glancing away.

"Please leave me alone."

The taller man pushed off the doorframe and took a step forward. "Jean--"

Letting out a gasp, Jean flinched like recoiling from a snake, and she took a quick step backward away from him. After a moment, she tried to compose herself.

"Please leave," she repeated.

Haller paused. He'd been aware of her stress, and it was true he'd suspected she'd been avoiding him, but he'd assumed it was due to anger at compromising the mission. This was clearly something else. Something like a frown touched his face.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked.

Still not meeting his gaze, Jean was silent for a few moments, thoughtful, licking her lips. Finally, she glanced back up to him.

"You broke a man's arm in half. It was so badly mangled that it had to be amputated. And you're not even sorry. You're just saying what you think people expect you to say. How should I feel? Happy?"

The telekinetic didn't express surprise -- his spectrum of visible reaction was too limited to that. He did, however, go silent.

"I'm sorry," Haller said at last. "Sincerely. I hadn't even thought about how that would affect you, especially as a doctor. And I'll admit that I wasn't thinking about the man, either."

Jean put the broom away and kept her distance, leaning against a nearby desk.

"You were thinking of vengeance. And you didn't care who got hurt, or the consequences. God, it must be nice to not give a damn rather than deal with your problems in a constructive way that doesn't involve maiming. Because this is not the boy I knew back at Muir. But then again....maybe I didn't know you at all."

She shook her head.

"But this isn't my problem. I promised myself I would back off," she said, rubbing her eyes.

"Anyway, your apology is accepted. You can go now." She really didn't feel like dealing with him or anyone else anymore for awhile.

Now what had been only a suggestion of expression became a true frown. "Was it vengeance?" Haller wondered. There was genuine puzzlement in the question, as if this was the first time the possibility had occurred to him. "I didn't think so. I wasn't angry, and I wasn't thinking about causing pain. I just reacted to a threat." He folded his arms and contemplated the floor tiles, finally relieving Jean of his unnerving gaze. "But you're right, I didn't care that people got hurt when I did. Charles agrees with you there, too. David didn't use to be like that. Caution informed our reactions, even the instinctive ones."

Jean glanced away. "No, that wasn't a normal reaction to a threat. What you said, what you did, that level of destruction....You could've done 15 different things to stop that man that didn't involve damage. But instead your put lives at risk, including the people on your team. I think you're letting your---," she said. She let out a breath, holding up her hands.

"Nevermind. I'm sorry. Can we please stop talking about this? I'll want to help and I can't help you. I'm not Scott. Or Charles. This isn't my place. I can't fix anyone except patch people up or...clean up the mess."

"You're right to be upset. I don't need to feel it to understand that. But I also think you're selling yourself short." Haller removed his gaze from the floor and returned his attention to Jean. "Someone who does the things you're describing doesn't belong on the team. That's not what the X-Men are about. Whatever I can bring to the team, it's not a trade Charles is willing to make. But you've done everything you've been asked to do. Sometimes, like with the crowd, it's even been more than could reasonably be expected of someone so new at this. And more importantly, you care." He shook his head. "Charles is right when he says the team doesn't need someone like me. But it does need people like you."

Shaking her head, Jean folded her arms. "Like me?" she said, laughing softly at the notion. Her eyes were momentarily distant and skeptical.

"I don't think I'm making a difference at all."

Haller shrugged. "We can claim the X-Men represents all the high ideals we like, but what does that mean if the people on it don't represent them? Intent matters." He added, with faint irony, "You could say it's the difference between a real apology and just saying things people expect you to say."

Jean glanced down. She didn't know how to respond to that. Not to someone who she barely knew, who seemed to choose to bottle up his emotions rather than deal with them, who might not understand. They were all so beaten down, so broken. All she saw was pain. She didn't want their pain. It was too much to bear sometimes. He seemed to think caring was a good thing, sometimes it wasn't.

Without telepathy there was no literal way to read her mind, but David had never used it in his counseling, and Haller didn't need it now to have some sense of Jean's state of mind. "Are you close to anyone at the hospital?" he asked.

"People you can do things with, I mean . . . things that aren't just work, things outside the mansion."

Silent for a few moments, Jean let out a breath and glanced up. "Look...I know you're trying to help. Because that's your job as a counselor. But I'm going to be honest: I don't feel comfortable around you right now, Haller. Yes, you scare me. No matter how much you try to apologize or go through the motions because that's what you expect people to do. Something's wrong. That's painfully obvious. But I barely know you enough for us to be having this conversation about either of our problems when I keep thinking I'm going to say something that will make you try to break my leg or...maybe even my neck. Maybe it's irrational but...I just....I need time."

Haller nodded. It was a reasonable request. What would either of them gain by trying to force the point? When he considered the issue from her perspective he found it difficult to blame her.

"All right, I understand. I'll get going." Haller turned to the door, then paused. "For what it's worth -- which I know isn't much right now -- I wouldn't hurt you, or anyone else here. David cared about this place and these people too much for that. But I know that sometimes the mansion can also be a kind of echo-chamber. There can be acceptance and belonging, but there can also be pain. It's a fact of life, and here, where so many of us have been through so much just to survive, it can be magnified." He turned to regard her over his shoulder one last time. "I guess I'm just asking you to take care of yourself. It's too easy to let other people's pain become your own."

Staring at him for a few moments, she glanced away, silent once again as she watched him leave.

**Author's Note:**

> X-Project is an X-Men Movieverse/MCU RPG on Dreamwidth. It started in 2003, set right after the second X-Men movie, and from there took on a life of its own. Thirteen years later it’s become a universe all its own, and includes characters from all walks of Marvel life – no character is too small or too obscure for X-Project. We roleplay mainly through writing logs on email, as well as posts on Dreamwidth.
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